Sculpture in Rome: Exhibits, Museums & Churches To Enjoy This Great Form of Art!

Some of us find painting too ephemeral, others think architecture is too big to grasp. But sculpture is usually a very immediate and understandable form of artistic expression that everyone appreciates.

That’s why we decided to write something for sculpture lovers so that they can have an itinerary totally devoted to the most concrete and sizeable art.

As usual, we will focus on current events, i.e. exhibits or fairs and this is our starting point in the story.

Until February 2012 the international commercial gallery Lorcan O’Neill presents A Meditation on Sculpture, with works by four young contemporary Italian artists in bronze, marble and ceramic.

Giacinto Cerone was one of Italy’s most famous and innovative sculptors and you can now see two exhibits devoted to this artist. One is Valentina Bonomo Gallery, while the other is hosted by one of our favorite commercial galleries in Rome, Edieuropa and will run until February 3. Works in chalk, moplen, mable, bronze, ceramic.

But the most important event of contemporary sculpture in Rome is by far the Biennale della Scultura that took place last summer. The next edition should be in the Spring of 2013, but check out their website for updates in the meanwhile.

The most important event with regards to sculpture will certainly be the exhibit that begins on December 9 at the Galleria Borghese that will see 65 of the old gems of the Borghese collection, sold to Napoleon at the start of the 19th century and hosted by the Louvre Museum since then. Runs through April 9.

Finally a collective exhibits of Italian symbolist and liberty sculptors. Two dozen artists of the end of the 19th century-start of the 20th are represented with their works in bronze, marble, wood, clay, chalk etc… until December 30 at Nuova Galleria Campo dei Fiori.

Rome can also boast of three museums totally devoted to sculpture.

Museo Barracco traces the origins of this form of art back to the Mesopotamian Civilizations in his small but very rich museum between Piazza Navona and Campo dei Fiori. Ancient Sculpture.

Then there are a couple of house museums in Rome. One is in Villa Borghese, Rome’s most ancient park, and is hosted in a weird castel-shaped building. Museo Canonica features hundreds of colossal and small sculptures by this Italian artist who was very well known worldwide in the first half of the 20th century. You can also see his workshop, his bedroom and dining room, since he actually worked and lived where the museum is now.

The other one, possibly even more beautiful, is the Hendrik Christian Andersen Museum, devoted to the Norwegian-American sculptor who wanted to transform Rome and found a new international city in the early 20th century. His projects and utopia are represented by more than 200 sculptures but also many paintings and graphic works.

Wherelse can you see beautiful sculptures in Rome? Well nearly in many other museums and churches, actually. We will just mention some of the “must” places for this concrete form of art: Galleria Borghese with Bernini and Canova‘s works, the Capitoline Museum with the controversial Wolf and the Dying Gaul, the newly opened Rome Gallery of Modern Art (read story here) with original pieces of the period between the end of the 19th and the start of the 20th century.

With regards to churches we will very briefly hint at St. Peter’s Pietà by Michelangelo, the touching body of Santa Cecilia in the homonymous church in Trastevere and again Michelangelo’s Moses in St Peter’s in Vincoli, near the Colosseum.

There are too many to write about and we don’t want to annoy you with the kind of stuff you can find elsewhere!